


XI

by tcourtois



Series: Fork in the road [10]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:07:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3723238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcourtois/pseuds/tcourtois





	XI

I.

Ava

Touching back down in Dortmund was like being flung back into reality.

I wasn’t ready to be home. I wasn’t ready to face my life without Mats, or with this new Mats that I didn’t understand nor trust.

“Give it time.” Is all that Emma advised me as she guided me through passport control.

I trusted Emma to give me advice because she was also getting divorced. I asked her opinion on everything any way regardless of whether it related to that or not, but with her I felt like I wasn’t alone in this.

She wrapped her arm around me as we passed through the last security door and into arrivals. Walking through arrivals at the airport used to be my favourite thing ever. Everyone waiting there is there for someone that they love or care about, except of course for the drivers holding up their signs. I imagined that they’d all been staring up at the announcement boards waiting for the time of arrival to appear, excitement jittering around in their stomachs at they anticipated the moment that they would see their loved one again.

I wondered how many of them were waiting for their spouse.

It reminded me of early on in my relationship with Mats when he used to go away with the Under-21 squad and I would meet him at the airport when he came back from wherever they had been. He used to bring me something back from every place he visited.

I had all of those things tucked away in a box under my bed at my brother’s house.

They were something that I knew I would never be able to get rid of, because they were memories that brought me back to the dizzying heights of our relationship.

~

The first flash that went off caught me off guard. I hadn’t expected there to be anyone with cameras on the other side of the gate, but there they were, mixed in amongst the people waiting for their families.

The second stung my eyes because they were too close. I shoved the photographer back by pushing his shoulder with one hand, reaching my other out to grab for the closest person to me.

It was Marco, or his forearm at least, that I grabbed.

He shook my hand off, sliding an arm around me instead to guide me away from the pack of men that followed us through, the clicking of their cameras the only thing I was really able to hear above the mumbles of my friends, the sound of it ringing in my ears.

“I hope they enjoy their pictures of the absolutely nothing.” Marco shot at one of them.

“Doesn’t look like nothin’ with your arm around her mate.”

Mats

“Are you sure about this?”

Jonas was concerned about me, having tried to convince me that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I chose not to acknowledge what he was trying to say even though I agreed with him. I had reached the point of no return, and then Cathy had walked in and interrupted us.

“I have to talk about it sooner or later.”

One of the assistants came over and attached a small black microphone to the collar of my shirt. She fumbled, her fingers skimming my neck a few times. I tried not to look at her so that she wouldn’t feel under pressure. I could only imagine the people she had met and had to do this for.

“Thank you.” I said to her, flashing her a brief smile which she didn’t return before scuttling off.

“I can’t believe you’re announcing it like this, and I can’t believe that you’re doing it with her. That’s too much at once.” He sighed. “It’s a lot that you’re telling people that your marriage is over, to add the fact that you’re in a new relationship as well on top of that…I think it’s risky. People are either going to think that you’re brave for moving on so quickly or they’re going to see straight through it and assume you were cheating, which is true.”

“You don’t understand that I have to do this, but you will soon.”

The assistant came back and told me that the studio was ready for me and with that I stood to follow her through, to where I was sure Cathy was already waiting for me. It had been her idea of course, to announce on national television that we’re together, at last, in her words.

~

“Tell us a little bit about how the two of you met. Was it just recently?” Inge the host was a charming woman in her mid-40’s. She was relatable to most people, she was a lot like a typical mother, caring but hard working at the same time, but she came across well and was sympathetic. When my mother set this up, I was sure that she hadn’t told her any of the real story, but she wasn’t pushing us or trying to pick apart the story that we had very carefully crafted together.

If Ava saw this and decided to tell her side, it would be her word against mine.

Cathy smiled towards the camera and I let her take over.

“Actually no. We were childhood sweethearts at high school. We met before Mats ever met Ava.” She sounded almost afraid to say the name, and when she did, she said it through her teeth, before flashing another smile and going back to her tale. “We were fifteen and you know how it goes when you’re young, you become crazy for each other and infatuated, and that’s the way it was for us.” She grabbed my hand then and squeezed it, leaving our hands tangled on top of my thigh. For show, of course.

“So, forgive me for asking but Mats.” She turned to me, ready to fire a question my way. I already knew what it would be. “If you and Cathy were together back then, how did you end up married to Ava?”

I swallowed hard, scratching my fingertips through my beard which I had let grow a little longer than usual. It felt like I could hide behind it sometimes and no one would recognise me.

“I met Ava a few months before I was set to graduate. I was considering my future and I wanted a change. I decided that I didn’t want to stay in Munich. Ava was going to university in Dortmund and she intrigued me.” It wasn’t really a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. It didn’t really show how infatuated I had been with Ava. How I had sent text after text asking her to meet me after her classes, or how many times I had stared blankly at her facebook page. I had pursued her for so long until I wore her down. She hadn’t wanted to go out with me, she’d wanted to focus on her studies, and now I had cheated on and humiliated her. She would have been better off if I had just let it go the first time she rejected me.

“She intrigued you?” Inge pressed.

“She was very different to Cathy. I had been with Cathy for a long time and sometimes when you are with someone for a long time you grow too comfortable with them and you look for something different, and a new challenge, and she challenged me because at first she didn’t want me.” There it was, the truth.

Cathy was silent beside me.

“Do you think now that you are doing the same thing? You were with Ava for a long time and now you are looking for something different?” she was getting bolder with her questions, but I had asked for it. I had asked for every single one of them.

“I- I don’t know.”

“Mats feels that us getting back together was fate. They weren’t working out together because they’re very different, like he said, she was a challenge and still is.” She squeezed my hand, hard.

My silence spoke louder than my actual words and so, I had to do something to make it sound like I was back with the love of my life and couldn’t be happier, blah blah blah, utter bollocks.

I looked directly into the camera, wondering where Ava would watch this from. Whether she would see it live or catch a replay of it later on. I wondered then if she’d watch it with Marco, and the thought of that made me feel sick.

“I believe that life goes in cycles. You can get out of sync and lose your path, but after everything you can still get back on track, back to the person that you love. No matter what happens to the two of you, you will always find each other again.”

“Aw!” Inge applauded, rousing the audience to applaud my words with her.

“So what’s next for the two of you now that you are back together?” she asked, mainly looking at Cathy when she asked it.

“Well actually, we have some very exciting news…”

I heard Inge’s intake of breath, as she waiting for Cathy to make her announcement. I held my own.

“We’re expecting our first child.”

~

The assistant unclipped my microphone as soon as we came off of the set. She didn’t smile once as she did it, mumbling a cold “congratulations.”

I brushed that off and walked past her, back into the dressing room where my family waited for me.

I didn’t expect a happy reception. I hadn’t told my mother, and if there was one thing that she hated above all things it was being kept in the dark. She always had to be the first person to know everything.

When I walked through the door she was the first person I saw, her and my father sat on separate sofas, their faces both blank.

I looked around for Jonas until I realised that he was walking straight towards me, his face awash with anger. I thought he’d grab me by the collar of my shirt and shove me backwards. The only other time he had been angry at me that had been what he had done. He’d suspended me an inch or floor off of the ground and delivered a swift punch to my ribs.

That wasn’t what he did though.

He punched me, his fist hitting my cheekbone. I barely flinched, knowing that I deserved it and that he probably did it out of love and frustration.

Then he delivered another blow, this time to my nose which I heard crack, before I felt a hot sticky liquid on my top lip.

“You wanker.”

“Jonas!” My mother chastised him, jumping out of her seat and coming between us to break up what was only a one-sided fight. I would have let him hit me again if it would make him feel better, or if I thought it would repair our relationship at all.

He swept her aside before dragging me into his arms. He clapped his hand against my back and pressed his face against my neck, and soon I felt him cry.

“It’s ok. I deserve everything I get from now on.”

That only made him shake more, and I held him still, rubbing my hand against his back the way I had when we were kids when he fell over and scraped his knee.

“I can’t stand it! I can’t stand that you’re stuck with her now. That’s it Mats. She has you for the rest of your life.” He withdrew from my arms, rubbing his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to play happy families and have her over for Christmas. I don’t want to watch you go through the rest of your life miserable. I don’t want this. I don’t want to be an uncle to her child.” He sighed in exasperation, looking over his shoulder at our father. He still hadn’t said a word or made a move but I could just tell from the way he looked at Jonas that he had agreed with every word.

“I’m sorry.”

II.

Mats

“How is she doing?” I followed the consultant as he made his ward rounds. Cathy was in a private room so he wouldn’t be going in to her until he had finished with everyone else and I could tell that my presence annoyed him.

I had been to the hospital every day since Cathy transferred there and I had put myself down as her emergency contact should anything happen.

So far her progress had been slow. Her blood pressure was back up to normal having dropped dangerously low and they had given her extra iron because they had found that she had been anaemic.

“She’s awake. We called you to let you know.” He barely glanced over his clipboard as he spoke to me.

“What? I didn’t receive a call.” I dug my phone out of my pocket, unlocking the screen to check if I had any missed calls. None.

“Please check with Angela. She’s the nurse that I asked to make the call. Then when you come back I should be finished here and I can take you in to see her. Ok?” It felt like he was trying to get rid of me but at the same time I was angry that I hadn’t actually received the call or I would have been here earlier. What if she remembered something and blurted out something I’d rather she didn’t?

And so I stormed over to the desk and threw my phone down onto it, demanding to know why I never received the call to inform me that Cathy had woken up.

I immediately felt guilty when the world’s kindest nurse introduced herself as Angela, shook my hand and apologised.

“I spoke to someone Mr Hummels. I must have dialled the wrong number perhaps, but they seemed to know who I was referring to.” She retrieved a file from beneath the desk and showed me the record that they had for me.

I had forgotten that in one of the boxes I scrawled ‘between 08.30 and 14.30 I am at training’ next to which I had put my mobile number and ‘if on silent and no reply, dial the home number’.

Shit.

I had written that in a rush completely forgetting of course that I don’t live alone, and that I have a wife at home who has no idea that I’m even in contact with Cathy and will ask a lot of questions when I get home.

“I’m sorry Angela, you did the right thing and I think you dialled the right number.”

“Oh, well I spoke to a very nice young woman. She said that she would pass the message on to you.” I closed the file and passed it back to her.

“I’m really sorry for the way that I just behaved. I just have a lot of pressures at the moment.”

“Of course, you must. You’re a national hero, and a world cup winner. You are my son’s favourite player. He wants to be a defender too, although he only plays for a very small volunteer led local team on a Sunday.” She beamed as she spoke of her son. She seemed to be proud of him no matter where he played. Unlike my mother, who had always run my career like a business and had always looked to get me onto the next rung of the ladder.

“Tell him to never give up on that dream. I will bring a signed shirt with me the next time I come in. Would you pass it on to him for me?” she quickly ran around the desk and gave me a hug. She quite a lot shorter than me so hugged me around the middle. I laughed.

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome.”

She looked over my shoulder and gestured to someone.

When I turned the consultant was behind me.

“Are you ready to go in and see her?” he asked.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

~

Ava

“He hasn’t seen her in years. When he left Munich he left her behind.” I paced around, my phone trapped between my shoulder and my ear.

Emma swore, loudly.

“Sorry that wasn’t aimed at you or Mats. He’s left his fucking shoes on the floor again. I tripped over one of them.”

I laughed, her sudden accident bursting me out of my bubble of concern.

“I know that I probably shouldn’t be worried. Plenty of people are friends with their ex partners and they were only teenagers when they were together. They’ve probably decided to be civil with each other. Why the hospital would contact him when she’s in trouble, I don’t know.” I sighed.

“I bet she can’t afford the health care.”

That made sense. I didn’t even know what Cathy did. If she did anything at all. She was one of our classmates that ended up at the end of the year without a university place. Either she didn’t get in or she never applied. Since then I envisioned that she probably attempted a modelling career but she wasn’t famous so she probably hadn’t gotten very far with that.

“That makes sense. I’m so glad that I have you around. You think logically and don’t just jump to conclusions.” I sat down, listening as Emma cursed again. “Are you okay?”

“He left his wallet in his shoe. He does that when he showers, I have no idea why but he left without it.”

I was a little confused as to why him leaving his wallet behind would matter to her. So I asked.

“It caught my eye because there was a piece of paper sticking out of it. So I opened it up and what did I find?” she laughed then, but it was a laugh filled with hurt and one that I had heard before in the phone call she made to me after catching him in the act.

“A fucking hotel reservation Ava. He told me he was going to work and then to stay with his sister.” Her voice faltered and became wobbly, and then I heard it break as she began to cry.

“When’s the reservation for, today?”

“Yeah. I’ve got the booking reference in front of me.” She sobbed.

“I’m coming to pick you up, and then we’re going to that god damn hotel to confront him and you are never taking him back again, ok? I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

~

Mats

“What you have got to understand is that she had a serious head trauma and that when she came to us the initial scans done by our Paris colleagues were unclear on what the extent of the damage would be. There is always a chance with brain injuries that there will be a follow up bleed. We have monitored Miss Fischer and it is clear that she has had a second bleed.” He spoke in these medical riddles that I didn’t quite understand, but at least he didn’t use much medical jargon.

I had read the leaflet on brain injuries that they had given me in Paris but I hadn’t let an actual word sink in.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means that we didn’t know what to expect when she woke up, or if she would even wake up. Thankfully she has pulled through.” He led me to her room, and stopped me again in the door way. “I’m sorry to intrude but I need to see her reaction to you. You’re the first familiar person she will see.”

I nodded to confirm my understanding.

He would be just as surprised at her reaction to me as I would be, because I didn’t know what to expect. Would she be pleased that I was the first person to visit her?

I thought though, that she would continue in the same vein as Paris. She would hate me, try to shout at me most probably, and she’d threaten again to go to her journalist friend.

Funnily enough her friend hadn’t been anywhere near the hospital.

I checked the visitors’ record because I was a mixture of paranoid and curious. Lara hadn’t cared as much as she’d had be believe. I’d given her the address using her contact details like she had asked, and she hadn’t even replied.

The consultant stopped one of the passing nurses. “Is she awake now?”

The nurse nodded. “She was asking for you. She failed to answer the questions also.”

I turned to him. “What questions?”

“With every patient recovering from head trauma we ask them three simple questions daily. What day is it? Where are you? Who is chancellor?” as he reeled the questions off they did seem simple to me, but to someone who has woken up after days in a coma, maybe they weren’t so straight forward.

“Has she asked for me?” I asked the nurse this time.

She shook her head. “She only asks for the doctor.”

“Thank you.”

~

I followed him into the room. Cathy was awake, sat up in bed with her pillows propped behind her back. She looked bright and inquisitive but she was still broken. She looked thin and gaunt and there were still tubes pumping various fluids into her although it was a relief to see that she was off the oxygen.

“Good afternoon Miss Fischer, how are you feeling?” he asked.

Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she croaked “fine.”

I looked at her and she stared back at me, and I realised then that when I had entered the room she hadn’t reacted at all. No anger, no relief or love or anything.

She didn’t know who I was.

“Who is this?” she asked, her voice barely audible still. “Another doctor?”

The consultant turned to me, before making some notes on her chart.

“I’m just somebody that you used to know.” I smiled at her.

“Oh.” She squeaked.

Her doctor said nothing from beside me. Letting me speak to her freely.

“We used to go to school together, do you remember that?” I spoke softly, taking her hand before I sat down at the edge of her bed.

She shook her head.

“Okay Cathy, I’m afraid your friend can’t stay long as straining to remember too much at once might be stressful and you need to rest.”

She said good bye to us both and I followed him out of the room.

“I lied to you when I said that I was her partner. I realise that I shouldn’t have done that but I thought Paris would have put that somewhere in the notes and I wanted the story to be consistent. The truth is that we are just very good old friends but I thought that wasn’t usually a close enough relationship for hospital visiting and to be next of kin for emergencies, and really I’m all that she has.”

“She just exhibited the worst case scenario that we were afraid of.”

“Is she going to remember?” I asked, biting my lip.

“In my opinion? No.”


End file.
